SEVEN MONTHS ON A DUMMY WARSHIP

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 221, 6 June 1918, Page 6

SEVEN MONTHS ON A DUMMY WARSHIP

HOW THE GERMAN NAVY WAS MISLED

LIGHT ON THE DOGGER BANK BATTLE THE "DISASTER" AT THE DARDANELLES

An officer of the Royal Naval lteeorre who, formerly engaged in one of the big White Star liners, served for seven months on tho flagship of the fleet of dummy warships, of which Belfast heard so much in the early days of the war, has been permitted to describe his experiences in the columns of the New York "Times." They make an interesting story.

"The suicide squadron," he says, "the grey Armada, never mounted a single gun, nor fired a shot, yet patrolled the North Sea, keeping the German Navy huddled behind its minefields and played an important role in the battle of tn» Dogger Bank. No such colossal war jest had been played on an enemy since the day of the Trojan. Horse. The British Admiralty tantalised /the German nuv.y with mysterious manoeuvres of a wooden squadron, some of tho vessels made of barn lumber.. and the Germans were completely baffled for months by the unexpected number of their enemies. The wooden ships, without a single real weapon aboard (the British Navy culled them 'Mock Turtles'), helped Britannia rule the waves <lurius the first year of the war. and tlie Germans never once suspected that they were augnt but what they seemed. The foe did not catch on to the joke. Even one of the submarines sunk a dummy at the Dardanelles, where it was ficvvTng as n mail ship for the Allied fleets. They announced, and rejoiced, that a British battleship of tho — Class, was -link by one of our submarines, although the hupe guns and turrets of the Dreadnought floated for days about the entrance to Stamboul..

"The whole secret cam* Vo me through the cotyiMiny depot steward when he offered to transfer me to that service. I accepted, and was ordered to roport for duty at a tiny, Scotch town on the North Sea. The special service squadron made an appalling eliow of lighting strength ns it lay at anchor in the little landlocked harbour which was its base, and I wondered if the tale that they were dummies was not a farce for the conBumption of 6pies. Never -had I seen warships with appearance more genuine. Grey monsters they were, with double turrets fore ■ and aft, from which great guns protruded, wicker masts with crows' nests, and gaunt naval bridges towered above the decks, stripped . for action, and anti-aircraft guns and range-finders pointed in every direction. All of them had steam up as if ready to dash to sea. Not iri my twenty years at sea haye I gazed on a more formidable squadron if the eye alone were to judge. On board the joke was evident at once. The fighting turrets were little wooden barns, with bare rafters inside. The greilt guns were logs graduated from a sapling, tapered and bored iu exact imitation of naval cannon. Not a single gun aboard. 'We could not have sunk a rqwboat. The deck was covered with tightly-stretched canvas, painted grey to represent the smooth steel deck of a man-of-war, so that reconnoitring aeroplanes would be. deceived. Antiquated merchantmen of about 9000 tons iSurdon, unfit for sea traffic in ordinary times, were the material out of which the Admiralty constructed the squadron. Tho flagship, however, was a better bottom than the others. The ironical part of her history was that she was a captured German boat, the Kronprinzessin Cecile, What Admiral Jellicoe Discovered. "Serving in dummy warships did not mean that our duties and discipline wcro shams likewise. The same rigid system prevailed as upon the vessels we were made to libel. Gun drills were our only immunity. The men had to drill witli lifeboats, and race ' vgth the crews of other ships i\ihen in port. At special intervals we all had to effect a landing on a supposedly hostile shore, nnd charge up a hill in lifebelt and collar. Encumbered with the heavy equipment, we fat fellows had a. tongh time of it, always reaching the top too jaded fo hurt a toad, and too lato to serve even as reinforcements to our comrades. Commodore Hnddock, who commanded the Rquadron, had .been for years before the war captain of the White Star liner Olympic. He was assisted by both merchantmen and naval officers, the latter directing the manoeuvres of tho squadron. We never knew where we woro going or where we were whon out of 6ight of familiar landmarks. Like other squadrons of the British Navy we woro continually joining and quitting the Grand Fleet where it lay at its base ready to dash to sea at any moment.

"It was the men of the Grand Fleet who named us the 'Suicide Squadron.' To them it was no small thing to venture out upon tho eea, unarmed and defenceless, in the garb of the submarine's legitimate prey. Sometimes upon quitting the main fleet we left one or more of our own squadron and brought out an equal number of the 'renl toys, , exactly liko tliem> The Grand Admiral of the British Navy on hoard a dummy flagship sounds like German satire, hut it was a fact op one occasion, when we learned that Sir John Jellicoe was coming with bis steel marvel of a flagship to inspect our poor benighted dummy. AVc grinnod. Tho entire crew was drawn up at attention on deck .when the Admiral's launch touched at our companion-way. On the aft deck he stopped, and turned to tho group of officers. " 'What ship do yon represent, sir?' he asked quickly. 'The Ajax, sir,' replied Haddock. 'Then that "boat doesn't belong there, sir," returned Jellicoe, pointing to a small skiff suspended amidships. In some embarrassment the. Commodore ordered it to be removed 'immediately. Jellicoe turned his attontion elsewhere, and finally, after expressing npnroval of the dummy a3 a whole, departed.

Decoys From the Dogger Bank. | "One could hardly realise that we were ' tho most; harmless sl.ip afloat iu those \ troubled times, and that the eifeetive ; weapons aboard the leader pi the battle i line consisted of two toy rifles, which I their owners kept for sea birds. Wher- ' ever we put to sea n lust stoaiu yaom always went ahead to scone ior ua, aho many times during tlie Keren'months in'! which I served in the dummy we had j submarine alarms-from the stout, but never a close call, But some of our movt iifcnte were report.'fd in Berlin, although our identity or fraudulent appearance was not (mown, or disclosed. The German Admiralty frequently announced ! during fhe summer of 1915: 'Our naval j scouts sighted a squadron of British iv.iv- j ships, which fled at our approach.' The j neutral world, well knowing the British naval 'traditions, smiled at. Teutonic simplicity. This tale was regarded as merely one of tlie many circulated by official Germany for home consumption, but it was probably true, although the, knew no more than' the rest 'of the world that those British vessels declined battle because they couldn't fight and were 'warships' only to the eye.

"In thu battle of the Dojjßor Bank it look the Admiralty experts (hem-elves to discover what we really did in the spankins .of Ofi-majiy's prize sqmi.'.i'mi. Sir David ' lteiilty's famous sijuudrou of battle-cruisers, led- by tho Lion, at that, lime the last word in naval liciiievcmunt, was iii.sidi! Harwich or Ihercnbonls, and not discernible to scouts in or over the North Sea. Tho dummy lleot was lnaiiocuivring about one hundred miles north of' that point, in ea.sy view, and experts deduce that the German scouts saw us, and reported the way clear for another raid on the English coasl. When the Germans came out licatly appeared at uncomfortably cloy quarters, and offered them a bit of siinri for which they Kceined to have little lelish. Tn t'.r running light tli-nt followed the IJluchcr made port in Davy .lunes's locker before the discomfited visitors ranched the minefields.

"Two of our dummies attained world notice, and even then nobody guessed that they were not real ironclads.' One was detached for foreign service, and, with one small gun set u,p on her deck, was ordered to relieve n cruiser then hanging oil Nan tucket. The real war vtwsel was sent away upon business that evidontly

required rail guns. Another dnaumy was sunk, and thus inadvertently gave 'comfort to the enemy,' although her loss hardly affected the odds on the sea. It was after the special service squadron had been discontinued that 'No. 14' camo to grief. The remainder of her consorts had lieen permanently interned al Belfast. Before disbanding, however, wo were told that (lie Admiralty considered the dummy fleet a success, inasmuch as the Dogger Bank episode was in part our achievement. Though there is no official authority for the theory, it is possible that the Germans, when they reported having sunk the British battleship Agamemnon, referred to the dummy sl.ip 'N0..14.' At any rate, the sinking of the Agamemnon was denied by the British, and iho Germans undoubtedly thought 'No. 14" was a real war vessel, at least for a day or so alter they torpedoed her."